TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Twenty-One
Rose walked along the corridor. A steward
coming the other way greeted her, and she nodded with a slight smile. She was
perfectly composed.
She entered the room. Rose stood in the
middle, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. She just stood
there, then--
With a primal, anguished cry she clawed at
her throat, ripping off her pearl necklace, which exploded across the room. In
a frenzy she tore at herself, her clothes, her hair...then attacked the room.
She flung everything off the dresser and it flew clattering against the wall.
She hurled a hand mirror against the vanity, cracking it.
Rose ran along the B deck promenade. She was
disheveled, her hair flying. She was crying, her cheeks streaked with tears.
But she was also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions she didn’t
understand...hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watched her
pass, shocked at the emotional display in public.
Jack was kicked back on one of the benches,
gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. He was thinking artist
thoughts and smoking a cigarette.
Hearing something, he turned as Rose ran up
the stairs from the well deck. They were the only two on the stern deck, except
for Quartermaster Rowe, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk.
She didn’t see Jack in the shadows, and ran right past him.
Rose ran across the deserted fantail. Her
breath hitched in an occasional sob, which she suppressed. Rose slammed against
the base of the stern flagpole and clung there, panting. She stared out at the
black water.
Then she started to climb over the railing.
She had to hitch her long dress way up, and climbing was clumsy. Moving
methodically, she turned her body and got her heels on the white-painted
gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. Sixty feet below
her, the massive propellers were churning the Atlantic into white foam, and a
ghostly wake trailed off toward the horizon.
Rose stood like a figurehead in reverse.
Below her were the huge letters of the name Titanic.
She leaned out, her arms straightening...looking
down hypnotized, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair were lifted by
the wind of the ship’s movement. The only sound, above the rush of water below,
was the flutter and snap of the big Union Jack right above her.
"Don’t do it."
She whipped her head around at the sound of
Jack’s voice. It took a second for her eyes to focus.
"Stay back! Don’t come any closer!"
Jack saw the tear tracks on her cheeks in the
faint glow from the stern running lights.
"Take my hand. I’ll pull you back
in."
"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I’ll
let go."
"No, you won’t."
"What do you mean, no I won’t? Don’t
presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don’t know me."
"You would have done it already. Now
come on, take my hand."
Rose was confused now. She couldn’t see him
very well through the tears, so she wiped them with one hand, almost losing her
balance.
"You’re distracting me. Go away."
"I can’t. I’m involved now. If you let
go I have to jump in after you."
"Don’t be absurd. You’ll be killed."
He took off his jacket.
"I’m a good swimmer."
He started unlacing his left shoe.
"The fall alone would kill you."
"It would hurt. I’m not saying it
wouldn’t. To be honest, I’m a lot more concerned about the water being so
cold."
She looked down. The reality factor of what
she was doing was sinking in.
"How cold?"
Jack took off his left shoe. "Freezing.
Maybe a couple degrees over."
He started unlacing his right shoe.
"Ever been to Wisconsin?"
Rose was perplexed. "No."
"Well, they have some of the coldest
winters around, and I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once, when I was a
kid me and my father were ice-fishing out on Lake Wissota...ice-fishing’s where
you chop a hole in the--"
"I know what ice fishing is!"
"Sorry. Just...you look like kind of an
indoor girl. Anyway, I went through some thin ice, and I’m tellin’ ya, water
that cold...like that right down there...it hits you like a thousand knives
stabbing all over your body. You can’t breath, you can’t think...least not
about anything but the pain." He took off his other shoe. "Which is
why I’m not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don’t
see a choice." He smiled. "I guess I’m kind of hoping you’ll come
back over the rail and get me off the hook here."
"You’re crazy."
"That’s what everybody says. But with
all due respect, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship."
He slid one step closer, like moving up on a
spooked horse.
"Come on. You don’t want to do this.
Give me your hand."
Rose stared at this madman for a long time.
She looked at his eyes and they somehow suddenly seemed to fill her universe.
"All right."
She unfastened one hand from the rail and
reached it around toward him. He reached out to take it, firmly.
"I’m Jack Dawson."
Rose’s voice quavered. "Pleased to meet
you, Mr. Dawson."
Rose started to turn. Now that she had
decided to live, the height was terrifying. She was overcome by vertigo as she
shifted her footing, turning to face the ship. As she started to climb, her dress
got in the way, and one foot slipped off the edge of the deck.
She plunged, letting out a piercing shriek.
Jack, gripping her hand, was jerked toward the rail. Rose barely grabbed a
lower rail with her free hand.
Quartermaster Rowe, up on the docking bridge,
heard the scream and headed for the ladder.
"Help! Help!" Rose was screaming in
terror.
"I’ve got you. I won’t let go."
Jack held her hand with all his strength,
bracing himself on the railing with his other hand. Rose tried to get some kind
of a foothold on the smooth hull. Jack tried to lift her bodily over the
railing. She couldn’t get any footing in her dress and evening shoes, and she
slipped back. Rose screamed again.
Jack, awkwardly clutching Rose by whatever he
could get a grip on as she flailed, got her over the railing. They fell
together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Jack
wound up slightly on top of her.
Rowe slid down the ladder from the docking
bridge like it was a fire drill and sprinted across the fantail.
"Here, what’s all this?"
Rowe ran up and pulled Jack off of Rose,
revealing her disheveled and sobbing on the deck. Her dress was torn, and the
hem was pushed up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looked at
Jack, the shaggy steerage man with his jacket off, and the first class lady
clearly in distress, and started drawing conclusions. Two seamen chugged across
the deck to join them.
Rowe shouted at Jack. "Here you, stand
back! Don’t move an inch!" To the seamen, he said, "Fetch the Master
at Arms."